President of the National Olympic Committee (NOC), EP Chet Greene, has sought to rationalise a decision by the body to limit the amount of funding made available to football in Antigua.
Greene, who spoke recently on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, said football is already heavily funded by its international body and should not require as much funding from the NOC as other sports.
“Football does not get funding because football receives from its parent body, FIFA, [an] amount exceeding what we get from our parent body. Notwithstanding that, whilst football does not get like, let’s say, athletics and others, there have been instances when we have provided funding for football like when they were trying to qualify for one of the beach games, we funded that exercise,” he said.
The former sports minister who once served as general secretary of the football association, said that the FIFA-funded association, with proper money management, should have more than enough to fund its programmes and qualify bids.
“Again, we can’t do as much as some people may want us to do but the truth is that football doesn’t need it. Football just needs to organise its affairs properly and to do proper budgeting and they have enough to go around. Football should be helping us to fund the national sports programme,” Greene said.
A number of other disciplines, to include athletics, tennis and swimming, receive financial support from the NOC on an annual basis.